Cover-Credits:
As OG qualified for BetBoom Dacha Dubai and is well on its way to securing a DreamLeague Season 22 spot, it has emerged as the strongest Western European (WEU) team in recent weeks. In the aftermath of one of the recent series victories, position four player Matthew "Ari" Walker, who joined the roster a few months ago, talked about playing with Sébastien "Ceb" Debs and Adrián "Wisper" Dobles. As Ari described, as a result of Ceb's experience and stature, he has become a sort of "dad" figure to the players at OG. On the other hand, Ari described how he communicates with Wisper despite the language barrier.
Ari on Ceb as OG's father figure and laning with Wisper
After winning a series at BetBoom Dacha, Ari was questioned about Ceb's role as the solitary senior member of a fairly young team in the post-match winner's interview.
“Ceb is a little bit of the dad of the team. He might not like to be called as such but it just ends up that way a little bit. You go to the wisdom and experience and some young guys, you know, might not wake up on time or do not want to prepare drafts - that kind of thing. Yeah, it is a little bit like that.”
As a 31 year old who has spent more than a decade playing competitively, Ceb likely has more top-tier Dota 2 experience than all the players combined on the team. Among the remaining four players, the average age is just 20.
Ari and Wisper were added to OG's roster as part of its roster shuffle post TI12, as part of the team’s tradition of trusting younger and emerging players.
Ari and Wisper occupy the offlane these days for OG and Ari described how the laning synergy has been taking place between the two.
“As I said, he is pretty quiet. He won’t say much. It’s actually were similar to last year when I started with kasane who barely spoke any English at the start of the year and he is also very quiet so I kind of got used to making the most of the calls and deciding how we are going to play the lane. So, it’s kind of the same now.
I would say that most of the stuff that is happening, I make most of the calls of what we do in the lane. Wisper will say occasional things and typically kind of follow my lead and it is just very simple. We do not have to have any discussions. It’s just really easy, simple that way so I got used to it.”
Following a challenging last year, marking OG's first failure to qualify for The International, the team has begun the 2024 competitive season on a strong note. As the team approaches the upcoming month, the focus will be playing more ranked games and scrims, aiming to make a formidable return at the LAN events in February 2023.
